For some true Southern sociology read these letters. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mysouthernfamily/THECHERISHEDLETTERSIntro.htm Carolyn, thank you for the apology, i have one request. Please leave out disparaging heated remarks about the South including Jackson from your post. It is very hurtful. I can't help but take exception to it. If you do say something please present the other side for balance. When you speak of how you hate Jackson for what he did on the Trail of Tears, at least he gave them a very large place of their own, Oklahoma, a dream of Sam Houstons. This was taken back by the new Lincoln government after 1865, because of Gen. WATIE's participation on the side of the Confederate States of America. Compare SHERMAN and his conquering of the West, totally wiping out tribes under the US Flag after the War 1865. (Wounded Knee, Geronimo). Now he is a piece of work! And Carolyn your comments on slavery are not fair and balanced, If this blight on our country for slavery is so great as you expressed then we share it with every other country in the world from the beginning of time, including AFRICA! That includes every country that has ever been, ever was, and country's who now at this very moment are operating with slave labor, including all the USA corporations, overseas merchandise sold in this country, and you yourself, because you buy it. A paperback book "The Slave Trade" The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 (908 pages) written by Hugh Thomas, "a former Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies (U.K.), he was made Lord Thomas of Swinnerton in 1981. He is currently a University Professor at Boston University. He lives in London." "After many years of research, award-winning historian Hugh Thomas portrays in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade." Chicago Economist, Robert William Fogel did a study published in 1974 "Time On The Cross", The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Fogel in 1974 was the only historian elected to the National Academy of Science. His results proved a surprise to him and a bone of contention for others. "Time On The Cross" challenges virtually every assumption that has been made about the management of slaves, their work habits, their domestic welfare. By revealing the profound extent to which racist misconceptions-northern at least as much as southern-have created barriers to our appreciation of the actual achievement of black Americans, Time on the Cross restores to Americans of all races a rich portion of their heritage." Volume II is a supplement to Time on The Cross and is subtitled Evidence and Methods, contains all source references, and comprehensive appendices in detail the technical, methodological, and theoretical bases for the writing of "Time On The Cross". Others have come behind him to debunk his work, but I do not believe they have, because sociology again proves him right. you wrote: He said, "What a country this is! A country that can make a mistake and the President of the United States will stand up and admit it, and say the country is sorry! Now THAT is a COUNTRY!" The South and a lot of others are still waiting for the truth about the War, Reconstruction, and the new lincoln party's control of this country to be told and admission for what it really was, we are still waiting to hear I am sorry instead of the constant Anti-Southern Bashing we are now subjected to. "Now THAT Would be a COUNTRY!" You appear to have caught the dis-ease hook line and sinker, but worse yet your posts appear to be acting like a liberal activist promoting their ideas, which you admit are taken from the prose of Faulkner with very little facts. He did like to sell books. You hold Burns TV series up as the epitome of truth. When it is a well known fact that Burns took poetic liberties in that PBS program, as all movie makers do. Folks, never base your education on movies and TV shows for profit. Likewise with the million dollar publitzer prize winning "Roots" by Haley which was proven to be a fake and belongs in the fiction section of your library. Proven by the British and all the facts of the fraud was published in England. As FOOTE said in Burns series when he could get a word in edgewise: "A Confederate Soldier when asked: "Why are you fighting? replied: "Because you are down here". josie At 06:26 AM 11/8/2001 -0800, you wrote: >Dear Cousins, > I must apologize to you for the messages over the last >several days. Today I have settled with my landlord, and my brain is >working better. > I feel that folkart, folklore, and follkways are intimately >connected to our historical pursuits. I love Wendell Berry's >poetry, and as I said, admire him for his convictions. His words >soothe my soul, and I believe that fostering community requires >passing on American writers, (and artists) their connection to their >own particular landscape, and their connection to our ancestors' >homelands and landscapes. I had hoped that you too might find >connection in this type of exchance, and in turn perhaps pass on your >own favorites and their particular insights and contributions about >our homelands. I had hoped these exchanges would stimulate discussion >and communication and connection. I still hope so. > I found "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways," disappointing >in the ways I mentioned, but I feel, especially for those who were not >with us, it is one of those works which certainly bears discussion >again, as we did little more than simply mention it's implications for >the ancestral paths we are pursuing on the website. We still have >not thoroughly pursued discussion of that book's thesis about the >other British folkways. However, I do not intend for supplementary >discussions via our list to become wrangling over >rights and wrongs committed over the four hundred years of our >history, and most particularly I do not intend to participate in a >continual wrangling over and re-waging of the Civil War. > There is simply no right and wrong over the Civil War. It >was an American war. It cost over 600,000 American lives, more than >all the casualities of all other wars combined, and is the single most >devastating event in our national history. What was wrong in our >country was Slavery. Slavery is the most shameful sin of our national >history. There is no "side" in it. There is nothing "right" in it. > It is a blight on the American soul, and there will never be >anything >that can be argued over that. Nothing. In fact, that blight is >evident in the messages that have evolved from this. > The Civil War is a part of our National History. Our >ancestors fought and died, North and South. Their blood was red, >whether they wore blue or gray uniforms. The great PBS program Ric >Burns created several years ago was historically accurate, and was an >excellent summary of the devastating toll it has taken on our National >spirit. And, in the South, as William Faulkner put it so well, "The >past is not dead. It's not even past ... " > Faulkner, like other regional artists, renders a historically >accurate view of the South via in his personal medium (fiction) of >what I feel are the most valuable insights, nuances and >interpretations of the South, and the ongoing turmoil and racial >problems that still exist 150 years after the fateful confrontations >of North and South. One website states: "For Faulkner, every moment >of existence is pressured almost to suffocation by all that has come >before; the past is not past--it's present. 'There is no such thing >as was,' Faulkner once said, '--only is.'" > My scholarly pursuit is American Studies, which I have chosen >to interpret through genealogy and history. We cannot come to an >interpretation of our genealogy and history without understanding the >nuances of the lives of our people, and art and literature are a huge >part of this. We form, and take away our own opinion and >interpretion through all of these things. The better we understand, >the better our means of finding resources needed. These are not >always contained in expected places. The key to my Grandpa Smith's >lost patrimony lay in his father's relatives with other names, and >even more distant locales than any of us could have envisioned. It is >necessary to understand their motivations. > Nothing is debated, however, let alone anything resolved or >resources gained, by rendering our personal opinions of let's say, >Andrew Jackson vis a vis Abraham Lincoln. I said I found Jackson >less than admirable because he defied the Supreme Court's ruling on >Indian rights to their land. The Supreme Court found for the Indians; >Jackson had them collected like animals and marched off along the >Trail of Tears. His disregard of the Supreme Court's ruling was >stated: "They've made their ruling, now let them try and enforce it." >I believe Jackson's (and his land grabbing cohorts) treatment of the >Indians is yet another stain on our National soul. I don't see any >logical or debatable comparison between his character or his >presidency with Abraham Lincoln's. However, there is a great deal to >be learned about the migrations of our ancestors by understanding what >was churning in the background prior to those migrations. > I am a great believer in stimulating interesting historical >discussion. I apologize that this has not happened within this >circumstance, and I am especially sorry that I have been unable to >direct that discussion better. I hope we can get back on track with >helping one another toward better understanding of our ancestors and >their times, in order to track and find our missing links. > >With love, Your Cousin, Carolyn >Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com >========================================= >--- Visit American Crossroads --- >http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads > > > > > >============================== >Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp